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A similar nuclear waste storage project, proposed in New Mexico by Holtec International Corp., is also awaiting approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The agency said it expects to make a decision on that proposal in January 2022.

Texas officials vowed to fight a federal regulator’s decision to approve plans to allow thousands of tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste to be stored in oil fields in the state.

The site in Sichuan province will help the country deal with growing quantities of radioactive material as it steps up its use of nuclear power.

Researchers at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor debuted the first part of a massive magnet they’ll use to build a fusion reactor.

That successful demonstration paves the way for practical, commercial, carbon-free power.

Our partners at UK Atomic Energy Authority and Createc brought Spot to Sellafield Ltd to demonstrate how Spot can automate nuclear inspections, support decommissioning, and reduce risk for people in hazardous environments. Watch the full video: https://bit.ly/3ttOgcr

What we need now is an expansion of public and private investment that does justice to the opportunity at hand. Such investments may have a longer time horizon, but their eventual impact is without parallel. I believe that net-energy gain is within reach in the next decade; commercialization, based on early prototypes, will follow in very short order.

But such timelines are heavily dependent on funding and the availability of resources. Considerable investment is being allocated to alternative energy sources — wind, solar, etc. — but fusion must have a place in the global energy equation. This is especially true as we approach the critical breakthrough moment.

If laser-driven nuclear fusion is perfected and commercialized, it has the potential to become the energy source of choice, displacing the many existing, less ideal energy sources. This is because fusion, if done correctly, offers energy that is in equal parts clean, safe and affordable. I am convinced that fusion power plants will eventually replace most conventional power plants and related large-scale energy infrastructure that are still so dominant today. There will be no need for coal or gas.

Circa 2014

Scientists researching nuclear energy have made a breakthrough in nuclear fusion with an experiment that generated more fuel than was put in.

It was a moment three years in the making, based on intensive research and design work: On Sept. 5 for the first time, a large high-temperature superconducting electromagnet was ramped up to a field strength of 20 tesla, the most powerful magnetic field of its kind ever created on Earth. That successful demonstration helps resolve the greatest uncertainty in the quest to build the world’s first fusion power plant that can produce more power than it consumes, according to the project’s leaders at MIT and startup company Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS).

That advance paves the way, they say, for the long-sought creation of practical, inexpensive, carbon-free power plants that could make a major contribution to limiting the effects of global climate change.

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Fusion reactors will use abundant sources of fuel, will not leak radiation above normal background levels, and will produce less radioactive waste than current fission reactors. Learn about this promising power source.